You go Darin Baldwin (#21)and Joe Burnett (#19). Represent your school, your families and your teammates late in the third quarter, in a dogfight with the Miami Hurricanes.
Moments after the Canes were tagged with a 15-yard penalty for interfering with Burnett fielding a punt, the two classy Knights strolled to the sideline.
Burnett flexed and Baldwin threw up his version of ‘U hands’, palms outwards and both index fingers raised. Motioning to Burnett, the DB/KR/PR who tainted his impressive eight return, 162-yard, 1 TD special teams effort, the senior joined in on the fun with a two-finger salute of his own.
Cameras panned to the sidelines and caught all the action, though quickly pulled away.
The repercussions? “Undisclosed”, though neither will be suspended for this weekend’s contest with Tulsa. Athletic director Keith Tribble made it clear that next time they do something like this, they’ll pay with the loss of playing time. As if players toss up the dirty birds on a weekly basis.
Call it what it is – Baldwin and Burnett are getting away unscathed, as is Central Florida. Had this been a higher profile program, the media feast on this for a week. Had it been Miami, we might’ve seen another national publication call for UM to drop football. The Thug U tag would be back in full force.
I guess only bottom feeders like Central Florida get away with this bush league behavior.
Thankfully the football gods prevailed and sent two jerks home with a loss and an embarrassing weekend highlight.